survivors deserve real justice.
Your lawmakers passed real survivor justice reform in Oklahoma in 2024. Implementation is just getting started.
our 2025 survivor justice agenda
1. Protect the Integrity of the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act.
It is clear from recent events that Oklahoma prosecutors are not going to end their war on domestic violence survivors. Three weeks after the Survivors’ Act went into effect, Tulsa District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler began to require the signing of a waiver of the Survivors’ Act in order to enter a plea. This coalition remains vigilant in the face of strong opposition to protect survivors in the justice system. We will fight to ensure the strong bill passed in SB 1835 will not be weakened or repealed. Should lawmakers determine additional protections against abusive prosecutors are necessary we will support them in passing new legislation to enhance the original Survivors’ Act.
2. Legislate reduced sentences for survivors of domestic and sexual violence who have been charged and sentenced for Failure to Protect.
Oklahoma has some of the longest sentences in the nation for “Failure to Protect” crimes which often trap survivors in a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation. If your abuser is also abusing your children and you don’t report due to fear of your life, you can be sentenced up to LIFE in prison. We want to encode an affirmative defense for survivors who can show by a preponderance of the evidence that they were a survivor of abuse at the time of the crime. We support any legislation that meaningfully reduces the sentencing range for this crime.
3. Ensure the Sentencing Reductions for Failure to Protect are applied retroactively for currently incarcerated survivors.
Any sentencing reductions should also apply retroactively so that survivors rotting in prison can go home again.
4. Batterers Intervention Reform that allows for evidence based practices and root cause violence reduction.
Batterers Intervention is broadly unsuccessful in Oklahoma leading to many repeat offenses, recidivism of abusers, and lack of true rehabilitation. Victim-led restorative practices have been proven time and again to be effective at reducing violence and treating the underlying trauma of interpersonal violence. We ask lawmakers to prioritize research and trauma based practices to address the mental health and behavior of those who commit low level harm. This will reduce violence on the whole and allow Oklahoma’s women to feel safer because the system will meaningfully address stopping violent behavior.
OUR COALITION KEEPS GROWING
About Us
Oklahoma Survivors' Act
Meet Oklahoma's Imprisoned Survivors
What is Criminalized Survivorship?
We're working to pass a Survivor's Justice Act in Oklahoma. SB 1470 would allow mitigating evidence of abuse at sentencing in a criminal trial. It would also allow survivors who have been sentenced another chance at justice through re-sentencing.
What is Criminalized Survivorship?
Meet Oklahoma's Imprisoned Survivors
What is Criminalized Survivorship?
Criminalized survivorship is the experience of being a survivor of violence, and then being subjected to criminal prosecution for fighting back against the abuse.
Our society frequently places the blame for violent acts on women, even when the women were not the primary perpetrators of violence.
Meet Oklahoma's Imprisoned Survivors
Meet Oklahoma's Imprisoned Survivors
Meet Oklahoma's Imprisoned Survivors
We're connecting with criminalized survivors in Oklahoma prisons to gather their stories, support them in the ways they need, and provide solidarity.
Get Involved
Meet Oklahoma's Imprisoned Survivors
Meet Oklahoma's Imprisoned Survivors
Sign up here to join our movement to resentence survivors in prison.
Why OKlahoma?
Since before we became a state, violence has been like a second language to us.
From the colonization of native lands, to the Black Wall Street Massacre, Oklahomans are no strangers to violence and pain. It's in our DNA. And, even when we didn't want it to, it crept into our homes. It crept into what should've been our safest places: our relationships. Child victimization in Oklahoma is almost double the national average, meaning that so many children begin to transpose violence for love early in their lives. So it's no wonder many of our citizens go on to enter relationships that culminate in violence.
90% of those treated for intimate partner violence injuries were women. Of those, the highest incidence occurs in Black women and Native women respectively.
Over 40,000 domestic violence calls were made in Oklahoma County in 2021, less than a thousand of those led to arrest.
We have to accept that our responses to intimate partner violence are not effective. We may never be able to eradicate intimate partner violence. However, some survivors are getting caught in the cross hairs of ineffective policy. Many survivors of violence fight back, and even though their abusers have evaded accountability for numerous systemic reasons--they are made to pay through prosecution, imprisonment, and excessive sentences.
Our Coalition
